The strategic essence of your organization should be
comprehensively documented and communicated. Every member of staff, right down
to the person who cleans the corridors, should know the essence of
the organization and how it affects their role. In the early days
you might go so far as to put up posters, put a banner on the wall
facing the desk of every executive and manager, talk about it constantly
until it is totally known and totally understood. Just doing that
will improve the competitiveness, effectiveness and profitability of
your organization. That is IF profit is your motive, IF you are a
"not for profit" or a Government organization, the strategic essence is every
bit as important in delivering whatever service it is that you deliver.
The view of any person and particularly any business systems
implementer or management consultant, is framed by their first hour of
contact with the organization. That is why I insist on
interviewing the CEO first, one on one for an hour. It is also why
I do not interrogate their website before I meet them (I do not want
some mid-level persons' view of the business first).
My first question is "what is the essence of your organization and
how does it thrive?" and "how does it differentiate itself
and compete". And then another two or three standard critical
questions that I have honed over the years. Together these
questions will take the CEO and every other executive individually a
full hour to answer. And, if given the opportunity, they will
overrun that hour. I active listen, (feedback) and take lots of
notes. By the end of that first hour I know more about the heart
of the organization than other consultants who have been working with
the client for months. In many cases I find that at the end of
this strategic discovery I understand more about what is really
important to the client than other consultants ever understand!
That insight allows me to quickly and accurately interrogate
why systems are not delivering, diagnose the root cause of the problems,
and prescribe the solutions. Because when it comes to
business systems, the root cause of poor system performance is almost
never technology or anything under the control of
technologists. Organizations are organic, they are made up of people and it
is generally the "people" issues that cripple systems. So, giving the
project to hard issue people who do not understand the soft issues, is a
massive mistake. Yes, you need the people who understand the bits
and the bytes, but they need a translator to tell them what to do in
order to align the bits and bytes with the essence of the business.
By extension, the next time you interview for the executive team, tell
them your essence and ask them to describe on the basis of their
experience how they can help you enhance it. When you next
evaluate competing management consultancies, do the same. When you
are shopping for new business systems, be it the full business suite or
simply some additional component, do the same and evaluate the
competing offers against your essence. Pick the vendor /
implementer with the people who demonstrate intuitive understanding for
the essence, and then lock them in contractually for the duration of the
project.
Do not allow bidders to wheel in the strategically intuitive mastermind
for the pre-sales meetings, and then send that person off in search of
the next trophy as soon as you have signed the deal. Lock that man
or woman into the project contractually and prohibit the bidder from
introducing anyone to the bidding process who will not be part of the
project team. Orientate them to the essence, and then make sure
that they evidence deep intuitive ability to enhance and support the
essence.